Before it was announced, I wasn't sure whether I would have time to enter this one or not, but even with a baby to take care of, four solid months should be enough time for anyone to finish a Challenge! (and yet, some people will still enter and "complete" their entire entries three days before the deadline, go figure!)

But given that most of the art I would be doing anyhow fits into the Strange category, I should be okay. See you all around... Have fun, y'all!

But I think we all have an agreement around the house that I'd go crazy if I weren't working on something artistic, so it might as well be this. Zach doesn't begrudge me my need to create as long as I spend time with him too. It mainly means my art time is not late at night and early in the mornings.

Anyhow, it's good to be back. This part of the challenge is like coming back to summer camp after having been gone for almost a year, or getting back to school after summer vacation, and catching up with all your friends you haven't seen in a while: Hey, how's it going? How was your summer? What'd you do? What are you studying this semester?

Hi, everyone! Good to see you all again (or meet those of you who are new!)
Yeah, Zach is really cute, isn't he? I'll try to do my best not to spend the next 4 months worth of Challengeness posting shots of him, but I doubt I'll be successful!

Still thinking about the topic... It'll be a little while 'til I get my thoughts together. We have four solid months to do this thing, longest time ever, so there's no need to rush into anything. I want it to be something worth working on for one third of a year. Given that almost anything can have strange behaviour, I'm just trying to settle on what I feel like painting and what its normal behaviour would be. I'll probably want something/someone else in the scene to react to the main character, so that you can tell that the behaviour is atypical (and incredulous expressions can be fun to draw!) I've got a great idea involving trolls... but as I'm almost finished with a new painting full of trolls, I may not feel like going there again (but if anyone feels like seeing that one in progress, check out the link to my sketch-blog below.)

As long as it's 7 or 8, I'm happy... It sounds like you're considering trolls for this time around. It'll be hard fitting that into the theme without being too cliche. No better man for the job, though. What sort of ideas do you have so far?

HI Walrus, just checked your sketchblock and love it!Personaly I prefer the "7", as theble colors make it easier to travel your eye through in some kind a way.And it's more eye-catching I think personaly.The others sketches rock also, a lot of imagination in there.great!
IndeedZach is cute,haha!A lot of inspiration han?Me love to have them around while drawing, and hear their opinions about the things they see in yor drawings.
Yap well, that was my little drop by.LAter buddy!

Theresa - Naw, I've abandoned the troll idea: It works much better with Elves, which is spiffy because, as I said, I'm already doing a piece with trolls. But I don't want to tip my hand yet. With a 4-month challnege, I've got a month 'til I really need to nail anything down. Remember 'Journey Begins?' I took forever to decide between some of the different concepts I had. (And if I recall correctly, you weren't a proponent of the one I ended up going with! And similarly, I chose a different color scheme for the trolls than the one you liked - but maybe it might be good anyhow.) But anyhow, sometimes things sound good on paper but don't work in a sketch. I won't really decide or even talk about anything 'til I've had a chance to sketch them out.

Remko - It'll be exciteing when I get to the point where Zach can give me opinions and comment on my work. But right now, he's too young... and when he's awake and I'm home at the same time, I'm with him and not doing art for the most part!

Linda- Yup! Feel free to say it all you want!

Simon - Good to see you here again! Missed you last time around - looking forward to seeing you work on a new piece!

Ah mike, sure you should know by now that I exist only as a counterpart to you, i.e to do exactly what you DON'T do and to act as a devil's advocate. Either way, you usually have a winning formula, so I'm not complaining....

Thanks for stopping by, everyone! I'm not actually going to post any sketches... I'm just trying to see how long I can get this thread without posting a single piece of imagery.

Just kidding, I've just started preliminary (read as: ugly) sketches for a couple of different ideas, but a lot of my free time is taken up finishing up a new digital painting (what timing!) so when that's wrapped, I'll be able to concentrate on this more.

No, Zach won't be part of this painting. But I am thinking ahead to 14 years from now, and it's possible that teenagers will figure into the final piece. Because everything teenagers do is Strange Behaviour!

Okay, so here's my first concept: A cute teenage vampire girl who wants to join her friends (or is it fiends?) to go hang out on the beach during the summer time. In the bottom sketch(es) she's trying to convince her folks to let her go. She's got her whole bag of stuff, and she swears she'll use her SPF-4000 sun-screen! Her coffin is right behind her, btw, coverred with posters of teen idols and the like (Vlad Pitt is one of them.) And her poorly-drawn aprents are in bathrobes bewcause, if the sun is shining, it IS the middle of the night, right?

In the top picture, she's at the beach. Despite the sunscreen and the umbrella, she let one of her feet hang out outside the shadow. It's now smoking... ouch! There are some guys checking her out in the back left. One of them is a teen Frankenstein. (See the scars?)

Yes', it's all poorly drawn at this point, mainly all there for the purposes if composition and basic mood and emotion. I doubt this is the one I'll stick with. I'm not sure if I'm even the best person to draw this... Hey, Aly, need an idea to work on? :) I have another idea to still flesh out- but hey, at least I get an image thumbnail next to my thread now!

Hello Walrus !
Happy to see you in the contest.
Your first idea is cool to have a thumbnail thread, not an idea lol
It's not strange that's young Vampire girl, want to have a sunbath... Cause : teenager are strange ; and Vampire too. Imagine vampire teenager !
Trust in me to say you when your sketch will be powerfull and the idea exellent. I Bookmark your thread, and I will be here often.
Have a good and creative day

Deevad, you hit the nail on the head when you talked about teenagers: To an aduly, just about anything a teenager does might fall into the category of "strange behavior." But even amongst teens - a typically harsh, merciless, conformist bunch - there is behavior that is considered strange. So I'm depicting the perpetual pariahs of high school, the role-playing-gamers!

Only in this case, just depicting high-scholl kids would be too boring (and too autobiographical) so I've reset the scene to a village of High Elves. Because elves playing RPGs is strange too. In the background, some haughty/hottie elfen maidens scoff, as they wander by on theri way to battle traingin or something more important.

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